The Good and The Bad of Provincial Funding Announcements

Friday, 13 September 2019 at 03:48

Some of the funding announcements will impact some of the public services across the County in the next year; public health will be in a shortfall of $208,369, child care will see a shortfall of $319,220 and ambulance services could potentially have a shortfall of $1,120,899.

OXFORD COUNTY - New information handed down by the province could impact municipal budgets and tax payers.

The potential provincial funding shortfall for 2019 and 2020 is over $1.7 million. Council received the information at their meeting on Wednesday.

Warden Larry Martin says the province will continue to provide funds for affordable housing.

"The biggest numbers that stood out to me was with affordable housing that they're going to continue with that, and they have actually added dollars to that so it'll compliment our sustainability plan and our zero poverty and our strategic plan as well going down the road. Those dollars are still going to be there and all three levels of government are going to be investing in that for other people and it's something that's needed province-wide, so I'm glad to see that the province did come out with that despite all the other cuts at least that is there."

Warden Martin says staff will look into ways of mitigating these shortfalls.

"We have a very confident staff and I'm quite sure that they will look after that and deal with it in a matter that has as least of an impact as possible."

Council's report says that while staff continues to work to find ways to mitigate these shortfalls, downloading will have an unavoidable impact on Oxford County taxpayers.

Their report also states for Southwestern Public Health to provide a report to council on how the board intends to adjust its service delivery model to reflect the new funding arrangement from the provincial government.

Staff will pursue mitigating some of these measures of funds lost by looking to other sources of funding, service delivery efficiencies and shared service arrangements.